On Authenticity

So it’s been a couple weeks since my last post. Lots of training and learning has taken place plus lots of excitement in the MMA world. Nate Diaz vs Conor McGregor. I can’t express how excited I am about this fight. I’ve generally always rooted for the underdog and I remember starting to get into MMA when Nate’s brother, Nick, fought GSP. I recall Nick being outspoken about how everyone seemed to like GSP but disliked him and how he felt like everyone was against him because of this. Although Nick lost that fight, his mental toughness won me over and I’ve been a Diaz fan ever since.

It was after Nate’s last fight with Michael Johnson that really got me excited about the younger Diaz brother. Let’s not get it twisted. Nate is an OG in the fight game and for me to just recently realize how good he is speaks volumes about how I have only just started really following the sport. After watching Nate beat the hell out of Johnson for 3 rounds it was clear that I couldn’t be a fan of one Diaz brother or the other, it had to be both. This lead to me subscribing to fight pass, and watching as many fights on each of the Diaz brothers as possible.

Their style could be described as boxers with tremendous volume and cardio. They are a tsunami of punches that will drown the opponents if left unchecked. Furthermore, while not possessing any superior wrestling skills, the Diaz brothers seem to be just as comfortable grappling as they are on their feet. Their jiu jitsu is in the upper echelons for MMA fighters and footage has surfaced of the Diaz brothers being competitive with some of the best pure jiu jitsu artists out there (see Ryan Hall vs Nate and Roy Dean vs Nick). Granted, these grappling matches occurred A LONG time ago and all of the participants have evolved to such a level that the results for each fight would be very different today. However, it is a testament to how dedicated the Diaz brothers are to their craft. It is also why I titled this post on authenticity. Nate and Nick live and breathe the warrior lifestyle. People call them brash and arrogant which to some extent may be true, but many of the greatest athletes (and warriors/ soldiers for that matter) of all time will say that confidence going into any competition is very important. The talk is how Nate and Nick express their confidence. If you watch the vast majority of their fights, once it is over, the Diaz brothers have nothing but respect for their opponents. Always singing praises and congratulating them on a fight well fought. The Diaz name in MMA is as authentic as they come, and it is one reason why I consider myself a fan of theirs.

 

 

Some of the best examples of their jiu jitsu used in MMA would be Nick VS Cyborg Evangelista in Strikeforce and Nate vs Kurt Pellegrino during UFC Fight Night 13. In terms of boxing, Nate took Marcus Miller (highly decorated in pure boxing himself) and Michael Johnson to school while Nick used a very technical style against Paul Daley (another elite striker) and Frank shamrock.

For the McGregor fight, my prediction is that it goes the distance and ends in a  controversial split decision for Conor. Nate isn’t a knockout artist and although Conor has the power necessary to knock most fighters out, Nate is well known for his granite chin which I think will negate any knockout punches Conor throws. Nate is a volume puncher but McGregor is known for his movement training and evasiveness when it comes to striking so Diaz might be throwing lots of punches, but I don’t expect as many to land as usual. Furthermore, because of his movement and punching power, Conor is quite a good counter puncher, so every time Diaz throws a punch is an opportunity for Conor to utilize this. Like I said though, Nate has a granite chin and this toughness won’t allow for Conor to land any knockout punches. Therefore, on the feet, we’re at a stalemate. Nate’s volume will allow him to land some punches, but Conor’s evasiveness will cut down on any significant strikes thrown by Nate. At the same time, Conor will counter some of this volume with his own punches, but Nate’s reach advantage (greater than the tale of the tape would lead you to believe), experience, and toughness wont let Conor deal any significant counter strikes.

On the ground, I give every advantage to Nate.It is his best chance to finish McGregor but Conor  is too smart to play this game. Any time it goes to the ground, McGregor will refuse to engage and keep the fight on its feet, which I’m sure Nate will be just fine with.

 

 

Tip of the day: Leg positioning while opponent is in your crucifix.

What you are doing now: Once in the crucifix, throw your top leg over your opponents arm, triangle your legs, and squeeze your knees to keep his arm secure.

What you could do better: Once in the crucifix, throw your bottom leg over your opponents arm, triangle your legs, and fish for the wrist.

I’ve favored the crucifix for a little over a year now. I bought a copy of Artechoke media’s “Mastering the Crucifix” and ever since I’ve had lots of success using the crucifix against my training partners (including some high level brown belts). However, one problem that I’ve always faced is maintaining the position. A recent private lesson with my instructor has really helped to remedy this by addressing how I was using my legs. Basically, when I entered the position I would be squeezing my opponents arm between my legs, with my top leg thrown over my opponents arm, forming a triangle with the bottom leg. If I would squeeze my legs mercilessly while in this position, I’d usually be able to maintain it for a while, but eventually my opponent would slide their arm out and escape. My instructor advised that instead of throwing the top leg over my opponents arm, I should throw the bottom leg over and triangle my legs. So far, this positioning has been much more secure while in training and if I lose the position, it would be for something other than my leg position (ie- not using my arms effectively). Furthermore, once you throw your bottom leg over the arm and triangle your legs, you can use your top leg to fish for the opponents wrist. Depending on how your opponent reacts to being in the crucifix, if  you are able to hook his wrist with your foot, you can shrimp your hips back and it can often lead to armbar/kimura.

Although I couldn’t find any specific videos showing this details, you can check out the video below which breaks down the Crucifix game of Baret Yoshida, widely regarded as having one of the best crucifix games in all of jiu jitsu.

 

 

On Killer Instinct and Ego

 

Brace yourselves. This is a long one. I promise the majority of my posts won’t be this long. However, this is a topic that is important to me and I have been struggling with it for the better part of a year now. I think a lot of martial artists can relate to this or would at least have their own points of view to bring to the table.

As mentioned in my last post, I got seriously involved in martial arts when I was about 13 years old and my dad took me to a local boxing gym. My dad had a strong background in boxing with around 80 amateur fights under his belt. I was an active competitor for the next 5 years. It gave me an appreciation for physical fitness and took my striking to a solid level. However, probably most importantly, in my last boxing match I learned the importance of fighting with a sense of urgency. Right before the first round started, my dad, who was coaching me at the time, told me “you go over there, and let this guy know that he’s in a fight.” Although I lost the fight, I performed significantly better than in any of my previous matches and I fully attribute this to my dad’s advice.

When I started jiu jitsu at 23 years old, like many white belts, I would make excuses for my poor technique and the slow pace at which I would pick up concepts. One of these excuses was that due to my boxing background, I was used to orientating myself with everything vertically (ie, standing up, everything around me is up and down). However, when rolling in jiu jitsu, it is much harder to spatially orient yourself this way because you are often on your back and in other unfamiliar positions. Because of this, the starting point for developing my game was working on standing guard passes where I could orient myself in a way that was familiar to me. I could now fight from my feet where it’s more natural to read my opponent, react to their movements, and utilize my timing better.

One of the main issues I had which stopped me from passing guard early on was what my instructors described as a lack of aggressiveness/ urgency. They would see that my grips and feet were in the right place to pass, but I wouldn’t take advantage of any openings. This was a constant criticism I received as a white belt. Part of my hesitancy was always due to the common rhetoric in the bjj community that anyone using strength and aggression to achieve a position or submission didn’t have good jiu jitsu. As mentioned in my last post, I’m bigger than a majority of people who train and never wanted to be “that guy” who relies on size and strength to be successful. However, under the advice of my instructors, the use of size and strength shouldn’t be confused  with imposing your game and rolling with a sense of urgency (AKA, fighting for a position  when there is an opportunity rather than giving it up just because your opponent is fighting to escape). I took this advice, coupled it with my dad’s advice from my last boxing match, and was off to the races. Once I had internalized that fighting for a submission or position was ok and not against one of the basic tenants of jiu jitsu (although many practitioners might tell you otherwise), I had a much more organic transition into my blue belt with less frustration. Arguably the greatest jiu jitsu competitor of all time, Marcelo Garcia, has a video where he talks about this style of training/ sense of urgency.

 

Now that I’m well into my blue belt, I still apply this principle when I train. Whether I’m passing guard or trying to sweep an opponent, I’m very active. Constantly moving my hips, my feet, choosing new grips, breaking my opponent’s grips, etc. Although this mindset has given me success in terms of developing and imposing my game, it has presented problems as well. For instance, I’ve noticed that a lot of grapplers (ranging the spectrum from new white belt to brown belt competitors), like to make underhanded comments/ compliments if I do well against them and I have any size on them. If I establish a dominant position? “so much pressure”, sweep them from guard? “your legs are really strong”, get them in a tight ankle lock? “I can’t do anything if you just crank it like that.” In an attempt to prove my technique and minimize these comments, when I roll with someone who is significantly smaller than me, I have made it a habit to actively avoid moving too quickly or fighting for a position if I can just transition to something else. If I establish a dominant position, I will give it up if my opponent is escaping correctly rather than just use size and pressure to maintain the position. If my opponent is smaller than me but happens to be a higher rank, I will impose my game and fight for position sometimes, but not as much as if they were my size.

My instructors, who I consider to be level headed in this matter, have advised me against doing this as I will run the risk of developing bad habits for both myself and my training partners. Unfortunately, at this point, I would rather continue on with what I am doing, until I can come up with some concrete techniques to use which won’t allow for any excuses to be made by my opponents. That being said, I will only do this with unfamiliar training partners and those of lower rank and size. There are many game competitors in my gym who I don’t hear these excuses from. They rely on pure technique to match my size advantage and it often works out for them. I pull no punches with these training partners and it is usually a solid battle for both of us. I come out of these rolls feeling accomplished and humbled at the same time and with more respect for those training partners.

One white belt in particular has frustrated me with his comments/ general attitude. There have been several instances during open mats where I will ask if anyone wants to roll and he will avoid me. However, as soon as I leave, my teammates have told me he is looking for someone to roll with. Normally this wouldn’t bother me. If he shows up to an open mat and doesn’t want to roll with someone bigger than him than that is totally his prerogative and I don’t judge him for it (well, maybe a little). However, it is the comments he makes which make his actions that much more frustrating. If I truly have poor technique (and am actively avoiding using my physical attributes when I roll with him) how am I passing his guard? Taking his back? Sweeping him? As he is 190 pounds and nearing the end of white belt status (he has four stripes), I can only do so much to even the playing field between us. I will always opt to pull guard rather than go for a takedown. I then have the option of sweeping him or submitting him from my guard. As he usually just keeps his elbows tight and his chin tucked, avoiding a submission, I will opt for the sweep and get on top. Once there, I will work for a submission. As I don’t want to give him any excuse as to how I was able to submit him, I will usually do a full transition from side control–>mount–> to the back before I start my submission attempts. However, he defends my attacks from the back by tucking his chin, and pulling down on whichever arm I am attempting to choke with. Obviously, this is the right thing to do if you are looking to defend so I don’t blame him for it, but it frustrates me that he is willing to wind down the clock with his defense rather than look for an escape of some kind. If he does attempt to escape, it’s usually pretty poor and I just transition to mount. In the end, when we spar, I dominant him positionally, but because of his defense, along with the fact that I am so self conscious about applying a submission with too much speed / pressure, I rarely end up with a submission. I am actively looking for ways to open up submissions from both guard and top positions when the opponent is being defensive but for the time being I have to put up with this guy’s whining.

I guess my main “thesis” for this post is that we, as martial artists, should be striving to improve all of our weaknesses. As mentioned, I am actively looking for ways to submit from the guard or top position which require very little strength against a very defensive opponent. I could just stick to my “A” game of pass –> get mount –> americana but what kind of fighter would I be if I neglected everything else? We have already been shown that there are various ways for smaller competitors to beat larger opponents and we see this frequently in the absolute divisions. If it were a universal truth that the bigger competitor always wins, there wouldn’t be a reason for someone below ultra heavy to be competing (and often winning)in the open weight category. In the spirit of this, I encourage everyone practicing bjj to be aware of their comments/ thoughts if someone bigger than them beats them. Was this bigger person cranking a submission? Driving all their weight into your face? No? Then relax and learn the proper escape. Many people get caught up in the sexiness of guard passing and submissions and forget the basics of escaping side control or a partially applied armbar. Don’t forget this, or one day you may alienate someone who could help you to better develop your game and this would truly be against the spirit of jiu jitsu.

 

Tip of the day:

Just got back from a Sunday morning open mat training session. Although things didn’t go perfectly, I was able to impose my game on some high level guys so i was happy about that. There’s one guy in the gym who is a particularly talented blue belt with an incredible guard that is on par with some brown/black belts. We have a good, fast-paced, competitive roll going on and I’m about to pass his guard when he inserts a solid butterfly hook. I try to kick out and do something along the lines of a long step pass but his hook was solid and my efforts didn’t yield anything. A very experienced purple belt was watching us roll and he advised that instead of extending my leg and kicking out to free my hooked leg, I should switch my hips to face away from my opponent, which would let my leg naturally come free. As soon as I tried this, I completed my pass and established side control. The best way to describe the motion is that of the knee slice pass which I frequently use to pass half guard but I never considered using the position to pass a butterfly hook. Keep in mind, my opponent didn’t have full butterfly guard with both hooks established. He had one leg hooked and every time I would kick back to free my leg, he would extend his and keep the hook. Conceptually, I guess you could think of it as similar to a knee slice/baseball slide pass from half guard. I’ve always had problems with passing the butterfly, but as I don’t find myself in that position too often, I haven’t spent any real amount of time learning any passes. I’ll definitely keep this idea in mind for future rolls. Although I couldn’t find any videos of this pass specifically for a butterfly hook, you can see the general motion in the knee slice pass explained by Rafael Mendes in the video below.

On first blog posts and heelhooks

For the first loud mapper post I guess it is best to give some background information on myself and what this blog will focus on. My name is Spencer and I’m 27 years old. I live in Vancouver BC, Canada and recently got my first job in the IT/software development industry.  As I navigate through the IT industry, I will post as I learn new concepts and tools that help me do my job. Hopefully this will benefit any aspiring technology professionals as well as allow me to better articulate the technical intricacies that are involved in the world of information technology.

Somewhat related to this, and perhaps more importantly, is HOW I got my job. I never intended to end up in this industry. In fact, for the longest time I wanted to join a police force. For various reasons, that didn’t work out. Towards the end of my Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Geography at SFU, I realized that if I didn’t get some technical, hands on experience in SOMETHING, I wouldn’t have too many career options available to me and funds were quickly running out. I bit the bullet, took out another student loan, and signed up for 9 more months of school by enrolling in the GIS (Geographic Information Systems) Advanced Diploma at BCIT. Unfortunately, after completing my schooling, I still felt strongly that I didn’t have the necessary technical skills to succeed in the workforce. I had a good grasp on terminology and some specific pieces of software, but more technical skills like coding and any in depth analysis were still a struggle to comprehend. Perhaps this was as all in my head more than anything else. Ever since high school I struggled with math and avoided any logical problem solving courses like the plague. As coding requires some problem solving skills to be thoroughly adept at it, I always felt like I didn’t have what it took to make a career out of it, despite enjoying it and being fascinated by it. Luckily, I pursued coding by accepting a practicum as part of my BCIT education which focused on learning to code and was able to land a job due to my experience in a seldom used programming language which is very similar to both Java and Python.

Despite my career in IT, my true passion lies in martial arts. Although I have about 5 years experience as an amateur boxer, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is what I prefer to focus on now. I’m currently a three stripe blue belt under De La Riva blackbelt Don Whitefield. I haven’t competed yet as a blue belt and only twice as a whitebelt. My first competition saw me get eliminated in my first match by points. My second tournament I got silver. Despite the lack of competition experience up to this point, I plan on competing a lot before I get my purple belt. The main things that have stopped me from competing as a blue belt have been school and then the weight gain that came with it. I’d like to compete in the heavyweight division (Between 195 and 208 pounds) and currently have about 20 pounds to lose before I’ll be able to make that. It shouldn’t be too difficult as I’ve lost that weight before, but the stress and lack of discipline during school caused me to gain it all back.

If I had to describe my game, I’d say that I’m a guard passer who, although comfortable off my back, prefers to pass and attack from knee on belly. Despite my size (~6’1″ and 220 lbs), I focus on mobility/speed/timing and don’t use a lot of pressure passing. My A game utilizes X-Pass and Toreando (bull fighter) pass a lot. When playing guard, I prefer a spider/DLR (de la riva) combination but if that fails, closed guard is always a good option for me. I rarely get a submission from the bottom, but as I do my best work from a top position, that suites me fine. I’m usually able to sweep my opponent and pass his guard and then move into a submission. I’ve always been a firm believer in the saying “position before submission” and I’ve developed my game around that. Rather than attack from the bottom, where I have to worry about strikes (in MMA or a street fight ) or getting my guard passed, I’m always looking to get my opponent off balance and sweep him in order to give myself the positional advantage. To this end, one of my highest percentage moves from guard is the omaplata. I rarely finish the submission, but it always leads to solid position and when my opponent defends (by rolling or stepping over my head) I almost always get the omaplata sweep and end up on top with his arm trapped where I can work a variety of submissions (my favorite right now is the wrist lock).

The biggest holes in my game that can I can identify right now are as follows:

-Attacking off of my back

-Pressure passing

-Takedowns

-Opening up extremely defensive opponents who would rather keep their elbows tight and their chin tucked than actively try to escape/ work to pass.

To this end, as I grow throughout my  bjj journey, I’ll post new concepts and techniques that work for me as well as help explore any ego/mental/ thought provoking issues that I think would apply to others who want to get into the martial arts.

Anyway, that’s the general overview for my first post. I’ll get into more detail re: jiu jitsu techniques and experience next time.